5 tips for capturing essential job knowledge

Every employee leaves. It’s just part of life. The real problem can be what they take with them when they go: valuable knowledge and experience that can be difficult, if not impossible, to fully replace. 

You can’t just train a new hire to instantly grasp every detail and insight an experienced employee picked up over 5, 10 or 30 years. Even worse, some of the most critical know-how isn’t written down in manuals or SOPs. It’s the stuff between the lines—the tips, shortcuts and proven practices that employees figure out over time and that organizations unknowingly depend on every day.

This challenge has become even more urgent for industries like manufacturing and skilled trades, where high rates of retirement are causing a major loss of expertise. When organizations fail to plan for knowledge transfer, they often find themselves struggling to maintain performance after key employees leave. Capturing this knowledge doesn’t just protect against future risks. When done right, it benefits the entire organization in the moment, enabling teams to learn from each other and improve how they work. 

Here are five practical tips for capturing and sharing critical job knowledge in your workplace:

1. Install a curator who facilitates knowledge sharing 

Knowledge doesn’t get shared spontaneously. While you might have that one person who enjoys creating helpful guides for their team, most employees are too focused on their work to think about documenting what they’ve learned. Without intentional effort, critical knowledge stays locked in people’s heads.

That’s why you need someone responsible for making knowledge sharing happen—a curator. This person doesn’t need to be an expert in every topic. Instead, they act as the librarian of your organization. Their role is to coordinate knowledge sharing initiatives, promote collaboration across teams and ensure key insights are captured and shared consistently. By elevating and organizing the collective knowledge of the organization, they help prevent expertise from disappearing when employees move on, all while maintaining compliance with any necessary rules and procedures.

2. Recognize subject matter expertise

Not everyone realizes the value of their knowledge. For some, their expertise is “just part of the job.” Others may guard their knowledge because it gives them additional influence or a feeling of job security. To break through these barriers, organizations must elevate and celebrate the act of knowledge sharing.

Start by recognizing those who make the effort to share what they know. Highlight employees who support their peers through coaching, hosting training sessions or putting together support materials (even if they’re not officially approved). Publicly acknowledging their contributions sends a clear message: sharing knowledge isn’t just helpful—it’s a highly valued behavior.

When employees see that sharing leads to recognition and opportunities, the information culture shifts within the workplace. Sharing becomes “cool,” something people want to do because it enhances their reputation and makes them a go-to resource. Over time, this shift can foster a more collaborative and engaged workforce.

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3. Give people places to share

Even when employees are willing to share what they know, they often don’t have an effective way to do it. Insights might get shared through emails, Slack channels, team meetings or lunch-and-learn sessions. But these methods are often limited to small groups. They’re also transactional—knowledge dissipates quickly, leaving others in the organization unaware of valuable insights.

To capture knowledge for long-term benefit, organizations must provide dedicated spaces where people can share and access it. This could include platforms like an employee app, wiki or intranet. These sharing destinations should make it easy for employees to contribute knowledge while also ensuring that information is accessible to anyone who needs it.

This is where the curator role becomes essential. They can work across departments to identify where sharing already happens, ensure those methods reach a larger audience and introduce new tools if needed. 

4. Make sharing easy

Employees have a lot to do. Even if they want to share knowledge, it rarely becomes a priority. To encourage sharing, organizations need to make the process as simple and time-efficient as possible.

Start by understanding where knowledge sharing naturally fits within each role. Take advantage of tools and formats people are already comfortable with to make sharing opportunities more readily available. For example, writing can be time-consuming, especially when simplifying complex ideas. Plus, some people just aren’t great writers. Instead, ask them to record short videos explaining how they perform key tasks or solve common problems. Plus, content created by peers is often more credible than materials developed by support teams they don’t know. 

Additionally, AI can further scale your sharing practices by analyzing knowledge assets and generating supplementary materials like job aids, articles or even complete courses. By simplifying the process and using familiar formats, you can remove barriers to sharing and ensure valuable knowledge flows freely throughout the organization.

5. Make sharing part of the job

If knowledge sharing is going to become an organizational priority, it must be treated like one. Sharing what you know typically isn’t included in the list of required activities on job description, unless you work in L&D, communications or knowledge management. Employees are often left to decide if and when they share their insights, which means it rarely happens—especially with the pressure of day-to-day tasks.

Establish clear expectations for how employees can contribute to the organization’s collective knowledge. Of course, this doesn’t mean every employee should spend a large portion of their time sharing what they know. Instead, tailor the responsibility to fit each role. For example, select frontline workers might be asked to share a post highlighting a key task on behalf of their locations once per quarter. 

By integrating these expectations into the workflow and holding people accountable, you reinforce the importance of knowledge sharing to the business. This fosters a culture where sharing becomes second nature—ensuring that valuable expertise is captured long before anyone walks out the door.

Keep the knowledge flowing

Capturing critical job knowledge isn’t a one-time initiative—it’s an ongoing commitment. By putting structures in place, recognizing and rewarding expertise, providing easy ways to share and integrating sharing into everyday work, organizations can prevent the sudden loss of essential know-how when employees leave. More importantly, these practices create a culture of continuous learning and improvement that benefits everyone.

JD Dillon, Chief Learning Architect

JD Dillon became an expert on frontline training and enablement over two decades working in operations and talent development with dynamic organizations, including Disney, Kaplan and AMC. A respected author and speaker in the workplace learning community, JD also continues to apply his passion for helping frontline employees around the world do their best work every day in his role as Axonify's Chief Learning Architect.

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